Applied Innovation and Acceleration - Challenges and Prizes

Challenges and Prizes seeks to remove critical barriers to international development and facilitate creative approaches based in science and technology that promote economic development.

The program encourages a wide array of innovators and entrepreneurs to develop sustainable, effective solutions to some of the most challenging development problems of our time.

Challenges and Prizes collaborates with other USAID Missions and Bureaus as well as other funders and donors to develop and implement open innovation programs including Grand Challenges for Development and various ad-hoc challenge programs such as WomenConnect as well as prize competitions designed to incentivize specific innovative outcomes such as the Off-Grid Refrigeration Competition and the Desal Prize..